Friday, October 16. 2009

No sooner has Twitter excelled itself in pushing Democracy 2.0 to new heights with the Trafigura Injunction Scandal, than it plumbs new depths with the Jan Moir weblynch. Now Jan Moir is one of those real "test cases" for Free Speech. She has completed the "how to be hated" triple crown of slagging off a just-dead, gay, boy-band member in the Daily Mail of all papers.

The original article is here, and the gist of it is that the author (said Jan Moir) believes that the death of Stephen Gately, gay boyband pop star was perhaps not as accidental and natural as it is being portrayed. There is no evidence in the piece, just innuendo about a menage a trois that potentially went wrong. So far, so what - normal hack fare, I hear you say....

And, as you know, fans of social media and the Web are all progressive, forward thinking individuals and take this in their stride. And they would, at a heartbeat, say they would support Free Speech to the death of their last iPhone battery.

So here comes the rub - Ms Moir chose to couch her over-the-top allegations with over-the-top undertones of homophobia which, while playing to the Daily Mail gallery, also of course has all the good people incensed, and the homophobia-phobes frothing at the mouth, and the #rentacause lot grasping for links, and everyone is calling her many very rude names as well as suggesting her instant removal from the paper, twitter, this life, the universe etc.

And the problem is, supporting free speech is defined, roughly, as ""I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". (Voltaire, btw*)

Of course, her right to Free Speech doesn't mean that you have to agree - or even listen - and you have the right to rebut and even disagree, vehemently as in the Grauniad - or even better, get snarky and sarcastically clever like the excellent Daily Quail piece.

And there has been a terrific response, and the correct one in my view, as Twitternauts have flooded the various complaint boards - Stephen Fry has weighed in with how and where she goes against IPCC guidelines, and many people have given guidance as to where to object. and how (it breaches sections 1, 5 and 12 of its code of practice.)

But I'm afraid not all have kept to this standard, in fact the Wisdom of the Crowd has turned into the Baying of the Lynch Mob at times. And in my view some of the hatemail makes those people no better than Jan Moir. And there are a lot more of them. And they are on the side of popular opinion so its far harder to take a shot at them.

So, what worries me more than some hack with a homo-cooked chip on her shoulder is this very real evidence of this darker side of Social Media - the speed at which mobthink can break out online is quite worrying. Or am I the only one (not in the Jan Moir fan club, that is) who is more worried about this aspect than what she actually wrote?

For the record, my view is that (i) I totally disagree with her logic, (ii) I reserve the right to say her article is full of sh*t, but that (iii) I totally agree with defending her right to say it and (iv) I wish I'd written the Daily Quail piece (You will, Oscar....).

Update - 24 hours later and its running and running, there are polls, campaign groups on Facebook etc all dedicated to getting Jan Moir fired or otherwise shutting her up. There has been a brilliant set of comments on the blog, and there were also a few good comments about this post such as these two by @TLockyer on Twitter, viz:

- Trouble with extreme free-speech argument is that if it defends Jan Moir, it must also defend those (NOT all) being nasty to her. (@shefaly made a similar point - "The critics have as much right to criticise as Moir has to her homophobia.")

- And those paid to write for commercial or ad-supported mass media can rightly be held to higher standards on sensitive stories

Absolutely agree with the former, free speech must equally defend the rights of those who wish to complain/criticise/condemn her. The latter is an interesting point, since, as many people have pointed out, her schtick - and that of the Daily Mail overall - follows a certain flavour that some will find offensive, so in my mind there is a "well, what did you expect" argument too.

What I do totally agree with is the idea that extreme commentators should face up to the consequences of the collateral damage they cause, and social media has been excellent for that - she can be in absolutely no doubt about how cross so many people are. I also thought the idea of having a go at the advertisers on the site was a very good one. Also, if after all the protests, her employer feels that she is too hot a potato and chooses not to provide a platform, that too is fine, others are justified in denying access to their platforms.

Predictably, Ms Moir issued an apology-that-was-not-an-apology - all very mainstream media, and accused the online-o-sphere of a concerted campaign against her. I think this is typical Olde Media misunderstanding, on 2 fronts:

- the "sharp riposte and flounce off" gambit only works in the Old Media, where access to reply was very expensive and newspapers controlled dissent via a small "letters to..." page and burying apologies in the smalls - but now a columnist who tries this will be hung out to dry by his or her own petard on multiple blogs across the planet. The New Media is a conversation, people listen, respond - and then expect a conversation.

- there was no "concerted action" initially, its more like a dispersed organism reacting. People tell their groups of friends about things, if those people feel strongly enough they pass it on, and so forth. It is also true that a series of concerted activities came about later (the Facebook campaign etc) but this would not have happened via a small cadre of "instigators" - it only happened because enough people felt strongly enough about the issue. I hope Ms Moir and the Daily Mail can grasp the difference between trying to move the masses (Old Skool Media) and a mass movement (New Media). What does happen in New Media is it moves very fast, so people don't reflect enough on their reactions to things that may incense them initially (hence my worry re WebMobRule and Free Speech)

I also think we need to allow people we disagree with a voice: I hate what the BNP have to say, and I don't want to hear it, but I think they should be let on Question Time so that their ideas can be shown up for the distortions and lies they really are.

Evan Harris MP made a telling comment at February's Convention of Modern Liberty: the real test of human rights is on those we might feel don’t deserve them – criminals, prisoners, terrorists… It was a good – and powerful – point: human rights are universal, and that means everyone, however distasteful we might find their deeds or beliefs.

Free speech is one of those rights.

So trying to shut her up is just wrong, wrong, wrong. If you genuinely support Free Speech it means you have the right to argue with her but not to try to get her shut up, and personally I abhor the crude ad-hominems! Just because I disagree with you does not make you a "sh*tfaced c*ntb*tch" to quote one erudite commentator.

In fact, If I were a tad cynical (as if ) I may not have have been surprised that some of the other mainstream media (and Twitterers) have seemingly been less interested in defending the Freedom of Speech mast that they nailed their Trafigura colours to a few days ago, and are in fact seemingly taking out Mob-Injunctions to silence someone else's right to free speech! Possibly (surely not) in the interests of traffic and short term popularity?.

A Volte-farce? - Perish that thought, Voltaire would be turning in his (very old) grave

Best of Broadstuff 2009
So folks, here it is for your Bumper Christmas Holiday Edition- the 10 Best Broadstuff stories of 2009. In its own way its a good log of some of the ZeitGeist in the Digital Ecosystem space. In order of popularity they were: 1. Stuff White People Don't

Weblog: broadstuffTracked: Dec 24, 18:07

Nudging us towards Happiness the Tory Way
Last night David Cameron spoke at the TED event, in London. It was in the stream dealing with Behavioural Psychology and Economics (I covered it here) and his talk was essentially a thesis in how this may be used by a future administration. My notes d

agree with you. didn't even know who she was until today. Read the article to see what the fuss was about, didn't particularly like it, but she has the right to say what she believes, and people have the right to disagree with her. The baying mob scared me from saying this on twitter in case they turned on me. I have never EVER been afraid of saying what I think. But I was today. And I can see a lot more of this behavior happening at election time... as you say, its scary.

Perhaps it's just who I follow, but I've found most people referring to the Charlie Brooker piece (well researched and well put), then the PCC. Thanks for the Daily Quail ref, by the way. Loved it. It's a mob with intelligent, articulate leaders. And at the tail end are the people with the same level of level-headedness and intellectual curiosity that Jan Moir was appealing to in her article. If there weren't a lot of them about, she wouldn't have an audience. I don't think she should be too surprised or offended by what she's spawned. And if Russell Brand had to go, (not that I think he did, necessarily, but hey, I'm not a fawning high-up in the BBC), it's not too much of a leap to wonder if she should stay. I'd stay it started well with Trafigura and it's still on a positive trend. Twitter can be a force for good. But yes, I wish I hadn't read that four-letter word quite so often in the comments.

Moir can express her opinion. However, it is her poor journalism that I find offensive. She has constructed a fantasy with no evidence to support her prejudice. She is welcome to her opinion, but so are those who question her column. Using her approach I could speculate that being overweight and living in sin will no doubt lead to an early grave. However, that would be sinking to the journalistic level of the Mail.

Definitely, there is a deep irony in the outburst that some have chosen to make in response to the original piece. It accentuates the isolated places in which it is possible to find impartial journalism rather than sensationalism seeking profit. Freedom of speech should allow all voices to be heard, even if it is unpalatable at times. (For the record I do not agree with Jan Moir's view.)

Jan Moir absolutely has a right to say what she wishes. But I'm with Ian Burrell in regard to her assumptive, ill-informed, bigoted journalism being offensive. It's as if some agrophobic housewife has been let loose with her uneducated fears after spending weeks refusing to pull back the curtains on real life. It is so ill-informed that it beggars belief. Has she not heard of sudden adult death syndrome? Has she not heard of heterosexuals bringing third parties back to their own place for more drinks. That a columnist can believe let alone write such bile makes one weep for journalistic standards. Then again, she was a restaurant critic beforehand (hardly Casandra) The private events preceding Stephen's death bear no reflection on the tragedy that followed. This is a classic example of New Media v old media. One lone columnist put her ignorance out there to be judged. And Jan Moir is now feeling the judgement of social media..perhaps as irrational as her own piece was to thousands. Sounds like a healthy democracy to me. Ignorance has spoken - and so have the people (mob or otherwise)

Freedom of speech should be left to the orange box preachers on Hyde Park Corner where their 15 minutes of fame goes in one ear and out of the other. Unlike Moir's race for effect, in type, for everyone to read, read and read again; just to make sure they read it right in the first place.
I say let the guy go cold before the stench of judgement comes running like a rat up a drain pipe.

Wait a second you are saying two opposing things here: 1. Protect complete freedom of speech 2. She should have been going with the ipcc guidlines. Sure she has the right to THINK what she likes but we shouldn't have to hear about it. This article makes me suspicious. If you are unintentionally putting two opposing points across then I still really don't like people trying to make their name off by promoting a backlash which fixates on the behaviour of a few. If you are not, then I believe you are intentionally trying to muddy the issue to serve some agenda which benefits people like Jan Moir.
I don't happen to agree that free speech should extend to sexuality/gender/race-hate speech, which is what I believe Jan Moir was doing. For example: When someone on the platform of a station started racially abusing another person I didn't say: 'I defend this person's right to hurl abuse at someone else based on their skin colour, I don't happen to agree however', I said 'What you're saying is racist, stop saying it right now, because nobody else wants to hear it' and, when asked by the abusee, I reported what I had heard to the police and got her prosecuted for racial abuse.
What Jan Moir did isn't any different and I think most people on Twitter think the same thing, and have demonstrated that they are not willing to put up with having to hear abuse like this as it is offensive and wrong. Also, you don't have to be gay to find it so.

Strangely, I haven't noticed the baying lynch mob you refer to. This may be because I wasn't very active on Twitter yesterday, but I saw the links to the original article, links to Charlie Brooker's effective demolition of it in the Grauniad, and links to the IPCC.

I agree with you completely that free speech is important, and worth fighting for; but the response I have seen seems appropriate - and an excellent use of free speech itslef. (I did click on the link to the "Jan Moir" Twitter search, but there were pages of tweets just a couple of minutes old, and I gave up...)

I also think we need to allow people we disagree with a voice: I hate what the BNP have to say, and I don't want to hear it, but I think they should be let on Question Time so that their ideas can be shown up for the distortions and lies they really are.

Evan Harris MP made a telling comment at February's Convention of Modern Liberty: the real test of human rights is on those we might feel don’t deserve them – criminals, prisoners, terrorists… It was a good – and powerful – point: human rights are universal, and that means everyone, however distasteful we might find their deeds or beliefs.

What Patrick said, essentially. Didn't know there was a lynch-mob, just a lot of very unimpressed people (none of whom, AFAIK, were Mail readers).

I get very uneasy when I read emails from politically aware friends urging me to go to anti-BNP demonstrations. Do I agree with the BNP and other fascist groups? Absolutely not. But do I think they have a right to air their views? Of course. Freedom of speech is either a right or it isn't; we can't just let people join the club if they agree with us.

If Ms Moir has breached IPCC guidelines then by all means people who are concerned by that should pursue it. But hounding someone until they lose their job is a bit too mob-like for my taste.

Having said which, if I were in charge I would be tempted to take off and nuke the Mail and its ilk from orbit. This is exactly why I should never be put in charge.

Patrick,
It depends who you follow, I think I might have to trim my list following the mob might not be good sometimes! you obviously follow people who rise above such things.
They were there, and I didn't like to disagree with them.

I think your final two paras say it all: 'Evan Harris MP made a telling comment at February's Convention of Modern Liberty: the real test of human rights is on those we might feel don’t deserve them – criminals, prisoners, terrorists… It was a good – and powerful – point: human rights are universal, and that means everyone, however distasteful we might find their deeds or beliefs.

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